Kash Patel, the arch loyalist tapped to lead the FBI, is similarly there only to use it as part of Trump’s larger crusade against those who he believes have wronged him. A conspiracy theorist with minimal experience, his only qualification is the one Trump cares about above all else: supreme loyalty to Donald Trump. The same is also true of Pam Bondi, the former lobbyist for Qatar and a woman who once rescheduled an execution so she could attend a fundraiser, whom he tapped to lead the Department of Justice after Matt Gaetz, his first nominee, bowed out.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the man he has tasked with overseeing the country’s health, is a crackpot and nutjob who has no actual interest in public health or science, only batty ideas about vaccines and other measures aimed at improving the public good. In Kennedy, Democrats have a real opportunity to co-opt his larger agenda, arguing that, yes, corporations have made much of our food and water unsafe. But Kennedy’s approach, which privileges junk science over facts, is not the answer.
Gabbard, his dictator-loving pick to be national intelligence director, offers the party something it badly needs: a reset in its approach to foreign affairs. The Biden administration has badly damaged Democrats’ reputation in this area thanks to his blank-check approach to Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza, which has fairly been described as genocidal. Its lenient approach to Israel has badly damaged the argument that the Democrats are a party for a “rules-based order” or, for that matter, for global stability. But in Gabbard—and, for that matter, Trump—they have a useful foil with which to rebuild their credibility, arguing that the United States must stand for democracy, freedom of expression, and international law—and not the murderous cranks of whom Trump and his would-be national intelligence director are so enamored.
